


I'm Faking My Own Suicide

by DrWholock_Holmes



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Reichenbach Falls, Reichenbach Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-04 04:54:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrWholock_Holmes/pseuds/DrWholock_Holmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I decided to finally post a chapter by chapter story set a few months after Sherlock's "death." While it appears to others that John is still unable to cope, he is part of a secret. One that shattered his life, but Sherlock is there to put the pieces back together. </p><p>I got the idea from a WONDERFUL song by a band called Relient K and the title for this "I'm Faking My Own Suicide" is the song title. Here's the link to a random but wonderfully done Johnlock version. You should all listen but I'm sorry for any feels caused. :D :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsZsY1NoTe4</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Little White Lies

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry that this first chapter is very short, I've got more saved so I'll post soon, just been super busy at the moment :) :)

I stared out of the long glass windows, listening to the soft tapping of rain coming down. Bloody miserable day really. Hardly the sunny April weather we were promised, but still. "John," she said softly, placing her folded hands in her lap. "It's been three months since your last session, why have you decided to come back and see me now?"  
I sighed and looked back at her, one hand resting on the arm of the chair, fingers drumming slowly. "I guess, it's just I still think about things." I coughed, clearing my throat, to fill time more than anything else. "I think about things I haven't said. To him, to Sherlock, I mean." 

I didn't need to look up at her to know that she was probably watching me closely, subtly pressing each of her fingertips to the tip of her thumb in turn. She didn't know that I'd noticed it. You do though after a while, after spending so long in the company of someone whose whole life revolves around noticing things. Observing the tiny little things no one else would care about and then forming an entire story, a past, from the fine threads of subconscious actions. 

"It's perfectly natural to feel that way after a loss John, to dwell on things that you wish you could have done differently. We might think that if we had, then the tragedy might not have occurred, but you must remember John, Sherlock knew what you meant to him. From what you've told me and from what I've heard myself, I'm sure he knew. Maybe you wish that you had told him more often or that you had expressed things more clearly, but he was as close to you as you were to him, of that I'm sure."

I left thinking about everything she'd said, about how I thought that I hadn't told him how I really felt. She was right I guessed. Well, as right as you can be when the dead person you're discussing is really alive.


	2. Hideaway

I hailed a taxi instructing it to an apartment in Mayfair. It seemed extravagant and I'd never been the type to be concerned about having money for social purposes but after the incident it seemed that Mycroft had only been too keen to help. 

I still held him at arm’s length, maybe a bit unfair I thought. He'd known that I couldn't go back to Baker Street, that I'd get Mrs Hudson to throw some of my things in a bag so I wouldn't have to, enough essentials to keep me from having to go back. He’d known that I couldn’t think, wouldn’t think about anything else except the fact that everyone had to be wrong. They had to be. 

That wasn’t really Sherlock on the pavement, not really his head that had broken his fall. Not really his life that had ended without a chance for me to even say goodbye. He’d known that although he’d sent me wine, probably the most expensive bottle I think I’d ever seen, with a small white card tied around the neck with token words of comfort scrawled in an almost illegible posh font, that I wouldn't reply. That at the funeral I’d tell him how sorry I was for his loss when he told me instead that he was sure my grief would be worse. Everyone seemed to feel the same. I didn't even notice it at first though. 

The numbness had kicked in long before. My words were automatic, my eyes glazed over, my smile the biggest lie I’d ever told. Everything just seemed cold. I’d sit at the table of the flat Mycroft had told me to go to, my hands clamped around a cold cup of tea so tightly you could see the white of my knuckle bones and just sit in silence, staring at the wall and thinking.

I didn't really think about Mycroft giving me a place to stay properly, it was obvious now that someone with his power and money would have more than one property to his name but nothing made sense for a while. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't eat or sleep. I’d try to shut my eyes and suddenly I’d be there again, head reeling from the crash with the bike, a knot of fear in my stomach, a feeling like any second I was going to throw up at what I saw. It was so empty in the flat. Everything felt a thousand times bigger without him there.  
Too calm, too quiet. I actually missed his bloody violin playing at the stupid times in the morning, the surprise body parts I’d find in the fridge and the way he’d take up so much space and be the entire focus of a room while he’d still completely still, eyebrows knitted together in thought, his fingers pressed together with his index fingers resting on his lips as he worked something out. 

I wasn't used to being so alone, not even back in the army. I suppose it’s safe to say that sometimes you have to learn to distance yourself, you have to know that getting too attached to anyone could be the most painful thing you’d do, because at any moment you could see your closest friend shot, or worse, be sent in a million different directions a split second after stepping on a land mine. Still, even with those precautions in mind I’d still been surrounded with people in the same situation as me, people who shared the same burden of getting the job done.

That was nothing compared to this though. In the army I had prepared myself to be careful that way. Strategically. Thoughts, eyes and ears on the mission ahead and the end objective. Then came Sherlock. Like a lightning storm out of the blue, so fast I hadn't had the chance to think about the consequences of sharing a life like this. I guess I’d assumed that I was out of the firing line.

I almost laughed to myself. I'd been pretty wrong about that I thought as the taxi took a sudden left and turned into a street of posh buildings with neat front gardens behind black iron fences, swept front steps and a general feeling like somehow I, with my army background and previous history of living with a “high functioning sociopath” as he’d put it, didn't quite belong here. 

I thanked the driver and pulled a tenner out of my coat pocket, handing it over and waiting for the change, taking a deep breath. Placing the few remaining pound coins into my pocket I stepped out and shut the door behind me, watching the cab speed off into the distance again. I was always a little apprehensive about cab drivers now, always wondered if behind the silence there was another psycho criminal, plotting away like the first case I’d seen, A Study In Pink. Not that I’d ever admit it though, I didn't want any weakness to show, no part of my life that someone could use against me. It had caused me too much pain in the past and I wasn't willing to risk anything happening again. 

Walking up the few steps to one of the apartment buildings I took out my key and opened the front door, climbing the stairs until I reached the door to the first apartment on the second floor where I paused, the feeling of apprehension knotting in my stomach still one that I wasn't used to. Twisting the key in the lock I took a shallow breath, and walked in.


	3. Tension

I’d learnt to expect something unusual or dangerous generally every time I entered the old flat at Baker Street. You do when you live with someone like him. After a while you get less shocked at the occasional head in the fridge and you start to learn to breathe through the stress of seeing acid burns in your clothes. You have to. I didn’t know how I’d cope with it otherwise. Now I’m shocked by different things. The normalness of it all. The way that when I walk in, it’s eerily silent even though I know he’s in there. 

It’s not like he could fire a gun at the wall without someone calling the police and there’s no way that could be allowed to happen. No one could know about the situation we shared. Not yet at least. I could imagine Lestrade, white face, jaw hanging open. He’d swear first and ask questions later knowing him. Probably punch Sherlock in the face for making him supposedly look like an idiot all that time, for leading the police on. I wonder if he’d arrest him for wasting police time.

I smiled thinking how it that hadn’t exactly been successful last time they tried. Sherlock in handcuffs was not something I ever imagined to work. I paused a moment, considering the prospects longer than I probably should have. Nothing could ever contain him. Sometimes he could get so absorbed by a case, completely switch himself off to the outside world and would stay in the same place for so long that you found yourself thinking that if someone threw something at him he probably wouldn’t move, but if you tried to creep up and put handcuffs on him he’d explode. 

It was odd actually, like he was the only person that could contain all of that energy. He knows how to be calm and still, but only when he needs to be. The rest of the time he reminds me of a hurricane. Suddenly he appears, whirling around causing as much havoc as humanely possible and then he’s gone just as quickly. 

I crossed the few steps into the living room quietly, watching him moving upwards, the back of his dark messy hair shaking as if I’d disturbed him with a bloody brass band. I knew what he would have been doing. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, hand pressed together, eyes shut to everything else, thinking.

“I’m presuming it’s you John, most home intruders don’t tend to use a front door key.”  
“Yes it’s me. I just went out, you weren’t even awake when I left, didn’t think you’d notice as per usual.” I passed him, sat on one of the plush sofas as I collapsed into an armchair. He looked at me blankly. “I did as a matter of fact.” I nodded and leaned back in the chair, shutting my own eyes. “So,” he started as I looked up again. “Pleasant session? I’m assuming she asked how you were coping, with my death I mean.” I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Here we go then Sherlock. Go on, I know you’ve been cooped up here so tell me. What gave me away? A strand of hair on my coat, or was it something even more obscure? A speck of dust that could have only been from her desk maybe?" I stopped myself, suddenly wishing I hadn’t started off a row. Fantastic.

I knew that he’d been going out of his mind recently, it only took him five seconds without a case to reach extreme boredom normally and I’d just shot myself in the foot getting angry over this whole situation, him actually being here, living and breathing when to everyone else he should have been long dead.

Sherlock looked taken aback for a moment, almost startled before he said in a low, nearly bitter voice “I didn’t observe that John. I saw it, on your phone on the calendar yesterday. You were changing the time of the appointment.” It was my turn to look shocked. 

There’s no way he’d be that normal. Not when there was a chance to show off, especially as there was only me that he could actually show off to. “Why would you do that?” I was confused, concerned even that he hadn’t acted like he usually did, hadn't taken that pride in his own talent enough to use it. “Because.”

He paused, looking away for a moment but turned again to stare at me, speaking faster as I heard the anger in his voice increasing, “what’s the point of it? What’s the point of any of it if I have nothing to do? No cases, no clients! I understand that I may not have friends beyond you and Mrs Hudson and I’m not entirely sure where I would place Lestrade, but in case you haven’t noticed I am trapped here without another damn soul besides you and you already know what I can do so why bother with it at all?!” 

I could have cut the tension in the room with a knife. It was almost as if his outburst had drawn any other chance of communication into a vacuum. Gone. I had guessed he would be feeling low, depressed even at not having a way to get back into the world yet but I had never known that it would hit him so hard. That it would take away the one thing that made him who he was. All the cockiness and the annoyingness and the cleverness beyond comprehension. 

I wanted to say something, to tell him that we’d figure something out and find a way to let everyone know that he was still alive but I couldn’t. I had never given up hope on him, not once in all of that time but hearing him giving up hit me like a punch to the stomach. It was like he was taking away the things that I’d held onto. As if he’d died again.


	4. Remembering

“Sherlock,” I started, taking a deep breath to try and calm my mind down. He nearly snorted with laughter mockingly, his eyes looking dark and filled with something unmistakable. Fear.

I’d only ever seen him look like that once before. At Baskerville, when he didn’t know what to believe anymore and felt like the only rational thing he could hold onto was his talent. Now he was even forgetting that.

I wondered just how much of a dark place he was in, whether he’d even end up turning back to drugs because of it. I didn’t know much about his past and he normally kept quiet about those tendencies but I’d guessed a long time ago. It was just the sort of person he was, always needing a high off something and always addicted to one thing or another. Now he couldn’t get a case I wondered how he was coping. I knew how desperate he could get and if it got worse I wondered if he’d actually even see the difference between cocaine and clues.

His voice was nearly a snarl as he spoke. “Don’t bother John. It’s perfectly fine this arrangement. You can go and continue with your life, speak to people, work if you feel so inclined but do not try and reassure me that things will get better in the future because as of this moment I can’t see a way out of this situation and the last thing I want is your pity.”

I could feel it then, all the anger and the grief and everything I’d gone through, everything I’d thought and felt for him even before he died, and then to have him suddenly appearing, months ago, telling me in frantic breaths that it was really him, that he needed to hide and that he’d explain everything to me later. I questioned how exactly he’d explain with the split lip I’d just given him, first unable to speak and then furious at putting me through it all, only able to hit him for making me think that he’d really gone.

I thought about that day, hearing him explain why he’d finally come back, how he was sorry that it had been so long. I didn’t really take it all in. I just sat there, staring at him, watching his eyes and his drumming fingers on the kitchen table, hell even his lips moving as he talked. His voice sounded wrong. The flat had been nearly silent before and now he was there, talking, explaining, trying to judge my reaction to everything.

I knew he could figure out that I was watching him, looking at him like an alien but I didn’t care. I carried on, working my way across his profile, his upright shoulders, his hands on the table that moved, almost nervously, tapping a rhythm out just to have something to do.

I couldn’t stop it though. I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to. Seeing him there, like it was the most normal thing in the world, casually bringing a hand to his lip to wipe away the blood. He deserved it. Machine like as usual, probably not thinking that the second I saw him I’d lash out, like anybody else on the planet with a bit of common sense and basic fear in them would do.

I remembered only really listening when he told me how he’d faked it all. How he’d been in the cemetery with me the day I’d talked to his gravestone. I felt like breaking something then. Like screaming “bastard!” at the top of my lungs but something stopped me. Something he said. I remember exactly how, his hands suddenly still, clasped together, eyes down and his voice was low. “I had to do it John. I had to do it to keep you safe.”

Everything was silent for a moment. I tried to think about what he’d said. He looked up then, eyes wide, like he was trying to figure out my next movement. I didn’t move. Not for what felt like an hour to me. I just sat there, frozen to the chair by everything that was going on. That’s when something snapped. I could feel everything bubbling under my skin like lava, I felt like any second I was going to explode. I pushed the chair away suddenly and stood up clenching my fists.

His face. I think he thought I was going to hit him again, but I didn’t. I walked over to his chair and looked at him, just staring, anger and pain and relief all rushing through my veins, pumping faster and faster as I suddenly leaned forward, grabbed two fistfuls of the lapels of his coat and kissed him.


	5. Smile Like You Mean It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm sorry this chapter has taken so long to post, I've been super busy. Holiday/college work/exams take your pick. Anyways I hope you like it, there's more smut on the way so keep holding on but for now this is a little something to wet your appetite. :D

I remember expecting him to react suddenly, to pull away and to shout or at least look alarmed but as I pressed my lips against his he did nothing. I moved away a few seconds later, dropping the handfuls of his coat, feeling breathless. There was silence for a moment. “Sherlock. I’m, sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

He looked away and then I saw him, just thinking, as if he was puzzled. It wasn’t something that I was used to. I almost wanted to laugh if I wasn’t so worried about what I could have just caused. He turned, facing me again as his eyes seemed to instantly go darker. He stood up and I breathed out slowly, wondering if I should brace myself for the possibility of being hit but instead he took a step closer to me and bent his head to whisper something in my ear. “Don’t apologise John. Please.” Before I had chance to mutter thank god for not offending him he brought a hand up to my face, and resting his fingers underneath my jaw, pulled me in and kissed me back.

I felt something spark in me then, an urgency to tell him everything I’d gone through, what I’d felt and what I’d wanted to say to him for so long, and I tried to move back, mumbling “Sherlock, stop I need to tell you something” but he shook his head and pressed another kiss along my jaw, trailing them down, cold lips against my hot skin, murmuring that everything would be fine so I could feel the soft vibrations travel through me.

I shuddered and tilted my head back. “Sherlock…” His name left my mouth as a groan as he pressed both hands against my chest and moved his mouth back to mine, kissing me like he never wanted it to stop. I remember being slightly surprised at him, the way his mouth made me act in a way I’d never done before, the fact that this was actually good. Pretty bloody fantastic in fact.

I wanted to laugh to myself. I knew what people thought about him, remembered the chief superintendent calling him "a bit of a weirdo." Well, before I'd punched him at any rate. People thought he was cold, anti-social. A virgin. They were wrong. They saw what they thought was real because that's the way he wanted it. He was brilliant, and stupid enough to risk his life just to be clever and infuriating but not cold. Not to people like Mrs Hudson. Not to me. 

My thoughts rushed back to reality as he bit down on my bottom lip suddenly, murmuring my name over and over in a voice that sounded like pure sex. Rough and rumbling from inside his chest. Christ that voice. I felt a surge of pleasure shoot through me as the words fell from his mouth again, like they tasted delicious to him. "Jesus Sherlock..." I trailed off panting, feeling him press into me slightly. I groaned again, surprised I didn’t feel overwhelmed by it all, that everything seemed to feel perfect, like this was meant to be happening, even him being in control like that. I’d always thought it was sexy when a woman was in charge but being with him was something else, like a force that knocked the breath from your lungs and still left you wanting another kiss instead of air.

I don’t know how long we stayed there, my hands gripping his slender but surprisingly strong arms and his fingers tracing mindless patterns on my neck but when we stopped we just stared, taken aback by the suddenness of everything, panting. I smiled then, amazed that my lips felt swollen as they did. “I guess everyone was right.” I paused, shaking my head in disbelief.

“About what?” Sherlock mumbled, his eyes tracing over me again, like he wanted to pull me into another kiss. “Everything they were saying. You know about us. The whole, are they aren't they? People talk you know.” He smiled at that. It was so rare to see Sherlock smile. Not a fake smile to coax information out of a witness or an elated smile at the prospect of a new case, but just a simple smile as if somehow, something ordinary could actually please him. It changed his face entirely. His grey-blue eyes looked brighter, almost turquoise and when he laughed quietly I could hear it rumbling through him. Genuine happiness.

The memory of his smile suddenly brought me back into reality. The bitter expression on Sherlock’s face as I had been trying to tell him that everything would be okay.

“I’m sorry John, was I boring you with my problems? It’s quite alright, I will be sure not to cause you any further interruptions in your schedule.” He nearly spat out the words as I wondered how long I’d been thinking about that happier moment.

“You know what Sherlock. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that we are in this situation and I’m sorry that for now you’re stuck here but this isn’t my fault. Sometimes life throws you problems like this and you just have to deal with them. Together.” I hesitated.  
“That’s it Sherlock. You’re acting as if you’re the only one involved here. I only want to help you but I can’t unless you accept that, and if you choose to, you could try to at least make an effort to put a smile on your face while we figure the situation out.” There was silence as he considered what I’d said. I decided then to go out again. I was too angry now to cope with him sulking like a child.

As I turned my back he spoke. “A smile?” The word sounded so unfamiliar to him. “Like when we kissed you mean?”

How could he have possibly known what I was thinking? As I walked away from him and opened the front door again I replied softly, “Yes Sherlock. Just smile like you made me.”


End file.
